Alexander Sergeyevich Yakovlev (aircraft designer)

Александр Сергеевич Яковлев

1906–1989 ○ Natural causes

Father of the Yak fighter: the only aircraft designer Stalin personally summoned for advice

Stalin told him: 'Say what you think, don't be embarrassed — we trust you, though you're young. You're not mixed up in the mistakes of the past, so you can be more objective than the old specialists who led us into the swamp with aviation.'

The most important Soviet fighter designer of World War II: his Yak-1, Yak-3, Yak-7, and Yak-9 constituted two-thirds of all Soviet wartime fighters. Denied entry to the Zhukovsky Academy for 'non-proletarian origins,' he broke through via glider competitions and founded his own design bureau by 1932. Stalin summoned him personally for aviation advice in 1939 and in 1940 made him simultaneously Deputy People's Commissar of the Aviation Industry and head of OKB-115, a fusion of administrative and design authority unique among Soviet constructors. More Yak fighters were built than any other warplane in history; after the war came the Yak-15 (USSR's first jet fighter), Yak-25 all-weather interceptor, Yak-28 supersonic bomber, and the Yak-40/Yak-42 jetliners, while he served 43 years in the Supreme Soviet and collected virtually every Soviet honor.